


you could drown in those eyes, i said

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Little Beast (Jonah Week 2020) [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Simon Fairchild, BDSM Scene, How Do I Tag, M/M, Overstimulation, Painting, Platonic BDSM, Power Play, Trans Jonah Magnus, Trans Male Character, Vertigo - Freeform, edging (mentioned), literally what is this, semi-sexual BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24813031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: “So you enjoyed that, did you?”“I wouldn’t go so far as to say enjoyed,” Jonah hugs his knees to his chest. His heart is still pounding—he can feel it in his chest and in his fingertips, in the vein Jonathan has told him runs thick and hot through each of his thighs. “But… the sensation… the…” he curls a hand into a fist, spreads it out again.“The vertigo?” Giovanni suggests.Jonah shakes his head. “No, that was uncomfortable. It’s the conception of it. The stealing of breath from the lungs, the loss of control.”Giovanni leans forward, already picking up his sketchpad. “Less the sensation, more the power?”
Relationships: Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus, Simon Fairchild/Jonah Magnus
Series: Little Beast (Jonah Week 2020) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788130
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45
Collections: Jonah Magnus Week 2020





	you could drown in those eyes, i said

**Author's Note:**

> Giovanni = Simon Fairchild, as decreed by the usual suspects.

It takes Jonah more than a minute to steady himself, when Giovanni finally releases him from the plummeting grip of vertigo. He catches his breath in open-mouthed gasps, clinging with one hand to the armrest of the chair and clutching his chest with the other.

“Well,” he coughs, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “I see why no one tries to start arguments with you.”

Giovanni cackles. “Oh, I’d love to paint that expression. You looked just resplendent.” 

Jonah wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. “You’re welcome to.”

Delicately, Giovanni arches one greying eyebrow. “Oh? Are you making the offer I think you are?”

“We’d have to do it in stages,” Jonah says, drawing his legs up onto the chair, crossing them underneath himself. “I don’t want to be sick.”

“That would be a very different painting,” Giovanni teases. “So you enjoyed that, did you?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say  _ enjoyed _ ,” Jonah hugs his knees to his chest. His heart is still pounding—he can feel it in his chest and in his fingertips, in the vein Jonathan has told him runs thick and hot through each of his thighs. “But… the sensation… the…” he curls a hand into a fist, spreads it out again.

“The vertigo?” Giovanni suggests.

Jonah shakes his head. “No, that was uncomfortable. It’s the conception of it. The stealing of breath from the lungs, the loss of control.”

Giovanni leans forward, already picking up his sketchpad. “Less the sensation, more the power?”

“Control is so often physical,” Jonah replies, nodding. His fingers rub at his sternum, trying to soothe his racing heart. “So often about overpowering. But that…” his eyes gleam, and Giovanni grins in reply. “That was effortless.”

“You like being shown power.” Giovanni’s charcoal pencil scratches over the page. “Being… taken advantage of.”

“I don’t like a fight,” Jonah says, gesturing to himself. “For obvious reasons. I’d prefer it to be decisive and… uncontested. If I’m more powerful, I win. If you are… you do.”

“Very straightforward, for someone so interested in complex machinations.”

Jonah shrugs. “It’s all very simple, in the end.”

Giovanni smiles. “That’s seeing the big picture.”

For the first time, even having been on the receiving end of his power—Jonah realizes that he should be afraid.

When Jonah arrives at the studio at the appointed time, Giovanni is already painting—laying blocks of color across the background of a canvas. His eyes have that glazed look of falling—deep into the blue outside the window his easel faces.

“Giovanni,” Jonah says, once he’s settled into the chair, and Giovanni is still absorbed in his work.

Giovanni lifts his head. “Just there is wonderful, Jonah.”

And then Jonah is falling.

He’s aware that the chair is still under him—he can feel the armrests under his grasping fingers, can feel his hips pressing back into the seat as he fights to anchor himself—and yet he falls.

It seems to go on forever, the vertigo stealing the air from his lungs, the sheer terror of plummeting making him want to scream, the effort of  _ not _ screaming bringing tears to his eyes. 

Through blurred vision, Jonah watches the walls fall away, the sky opening around him, impossibly blue and bright, yawning wide to devour him.

(Once, Jonathan Fanshawe had tied Jonah to the bed and kept him there the whole night. He’d worked him with his hands and his mouth until Jonah was at the edge of orgasm, and then held him there for minutes on end, dizzy and unmoored, gasping for air.

Jonathan had been deaf to Jonah’s pleading, blind to his tears, and when he’d finally let Jonah come, he’d licked Jonah’s thighs and slit clean, and started over again. Jonah had thought that nothing could compare to that infuriating knife-edge.)

Clearly, he was wrong.

When Giovanni lets Jonah go, he curls in on himself for a moment, fighting a wave of nausea.

Once he’s sure his stomach isn’t going to revolt, he gestures for Giovanni to continue, setting his feet back on the floor.

So it continues; long periods of vertigo, the world ripped from beneath his feet, the whole of the universe reaching out to claim him, wrapping him in a great expanse of blue until darkness threads across his vision, and Giovanni lets him rest, lest he faint or be sick.

So it continues, and every time Jonah settles back to Earth he feels less grounded, more as though the world he returns to might just spit him back out on a whim and let him fall into the endless blue.

“You’re doing very well,” Giovanni says, after a particularly trying fall that’s left Jonah with his face buried in his hands. 

Jonah peers through his fingers as Giovanni sets his brush down. He can’t speak. When he opens his mouth, he feels as though his soul is seeping out with his words

“Come see,” he says, in a bright voice.

Jonah staggers over, the world seeming to twist around him, the world rocking back and forth as though he’s hit his head.

Surrounded by a ring of blocked-in background colors that seem to yawn wide despite the fact that they barely frame the canvas, over top of a gesture of green that indicates the armchair, Jonah sees himself.

It’s not polished—however long Jonah’s spent in the limbo of disequilibrium, it’s not long enough for a fully realized painting. But the shape of him is there—his pale limbs, his red curls, the vague shapes of his clothes, gestural shadows laid out where the fabric creases. 

But Giovanni’s spent the most time on Jonah’s face.

The expression is nearly obscene. The painted Jonah’s head is thrown back, baring the freckled line of his throat. His lips are parted and his eyes are wide open, pupils blown so huge that the irises are barely there; just a ring around the expanse of black.

Jonah’s ears are ringing. He grips Giovanni’s shoulder so he won’t topple to the ground.

With a brush so thin that Jonah can barely see the bristles, Giovanni paints a line that follows the curve of Jonah’s painted cheek—a tear, then another, then a third, dripping from Jonah’s frozen eyes, down his face and neck.

“There.” Giovanni says. “Sit back down, Jonah. I’d like to be sure to capture how the light hits your hair.”

Jonah realizes, no doubt too late, that he’s probably made a mistake.

He sits down anyway. The painting will be worth the fall.


End file.
